Westport’s Board of Finance tonight voted unanimously to reduce a school board request of $4 million to $1 million for portable classrooms to accommodate displaced Coleytown Middle School (CMS) students.
“The objective is to reoccupy Coleytown as fast as possible in the safest way,” said Brian Stern, finance board chairman. “A fast a track as possible to get Coleytown Middle School up and running.”
CMS has been shuttered since the start of the school year due to a serious, illness-causing mold issues and other infrastructure issues. Its students have since been relocated to Bedford Middle School (BMS), where portables would be located.
The Board of Education had requested $4 million for 14 portables for what has become known as the K-6 plan.
Portables would be used at BMS, plus Coleytown Elementary School, Saugatuck Elementary School, Greens Farms Elementary School, and Long Lots Elementary School to reconfigure the grades from K-5 to K-6.
Tonight in trimming the schools $4 million request, finance board members agreed the sixth through eighth grade set up creating a townwide middle school was better and more cost-effective.
“The best plan is to get students back in Coleytown,” said finance board member Lee Caney.
The appropriation request now goes to the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) at a special meeting Thursday at which time the RTM could restore the request to the original amount.
—James Lomuscio
